


Greatness Is Sweeping the Station

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/472794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray's been worrying about his voice and special way with the English language.  Fraser offers reassurance, and something more besides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greatness Is Sweeping the Station

**Author's Note:**

> I can't seem to leave poor Kowalski's voice and verbal tics alone. When I was discussing it with someone else the other day, she said, "I don't really get the Cult of Hating Kowalski's Voice" (or words to that effect). I said, "Well, I wouldn't call it a cult as such. The preferred term these days is 'new religious movement'." And I thought maybe I could be a little nicer, and use Fraser to convey that niceness.

“You hate my voice, dontchya?” I asked Fraser the question out of nowhere. Well, to him it came out of nowhere. We were just sitting in a diner, having a late night burger, as far as he was concerned. To me…well, it was something that I’d been worrying over and over in my head, like a dog with a bone. Or Dief with his obvious thing for Ante. Good luck with that, pal. She was Denny Scarpa’s companion, now she’s Frannie’s. I’m sure _that _little romance is gonna turn out well.__

Fraser just looked at me. “What…” he started. “Why…” he tried again. Then he found his footing. “Why in the world would you think that?”

“I get it,” I said. “I’ve heard myself on tapes and shit and I know it ain’t pretty. Sounds okay inside my own head, but the words don’t always come out right, and I’ve got this whole sort of….” I make a loose gesture because I’m not sure what bothers me about my voice when I hear it on tape. Whiny? Nasal? I dunno. Even those ripoff joints that claim they can teach anyone to do radio commercials, for a price, would take one listen and say, “Hey, no hard feelings, pal, but you are not the sucker we are looking to fleece.”

Fraser, though, shakes his head. “Of course your own voice sounds alien to you on a recording. Between the abysmal quality of most of the recording devices you’ve used and the fact that you’re used to hearing your own voice partly through vibrations along the muscles and bones of the jaw, not to mention that the sinus cavities provide a natural resonance chamber.... Well, anyone hearing his or her voice through thin air finds the experience rather jarring.”

“Wow. So, like, kd lang hears herself and is all, ‘Damn, that sounded _so much _better in my own head’?”__

Fraser thinks about it for a moment. I love it when he does that. It shows he’s taking me serious. “I imagine that, by now, Ms. lang is used to compensating for what she hears in her own head as it relates to what is heard by the public. She also has access to much better equipment than, say, your answering machine or the recordings the Department makes in interview rooms. I’ve often wondered how singers ever managed to negotiate their instruments in the days before recordings were available….”

And it’s off to the races for Fraser’s speculations. I like his voice a lot. Sometimes, when he’s using English as a weapon against some mook who doesn’t even know just how royally he’s being insulted by Benton Fraser, RCMP, I downright love it. Symbolically or whatever. When he’s using it against me, not so much, but he mostly doesn’t do that anymore. Or maybe I’ve just gotten better at listening.

“What about _what _I say?” I ask, derailing his train of thought. Something about Jenny Lind. I think they named a town after her or something and she maybe recorded her voice for Edison, but nobody knows for sure.__

“What you say?” Fraser repeats. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well, I’m not exactly a walking dictionary. And I’m pretty sure that, if this whole cop thing goes south on me, I can get a job demonstrating ‘what not to say’ for people learning English as a new language.”

Fraser shakes his head. “While your speech patterns are…unorthodox, Ray,” he tells me, serious again, “you make yourself understood. And I admire the creativity you use when speaking. Remember when we were investigating Alderman Orsini?”

I nod. No way am I forgetting that shithead any time soon.

“You said, when we finally had concrete proof of Orsini’s malfeasance, ‘This is great. This is greatness.’ I loved those sentences, Ray. They were so...creative.”

“So that’s why you should hate it when I say shit like ‘greatness’ or whatever.”

Fraser’s looking at me intently. “Not in the least. English is a living language, Ray, and very versatile. People like you give our language its vitality. Your willingness to use existing words in entirely novel ways, to incorporate foreign words, to create memorable similes and metaphors out of sheer imagination…. I’m envious. You use ‘greatness’ that way once, and soon everyone is copying you. I heard the new desk sergeant use it the other day. She got it from Frannie, who got it from Lieutenant Welsh, who got it from me when I was quoting you in the report I gave him.”

“Really?” Fraser nods. “’Cause I said it that one time?”

“It was memorable.”

“So you don’t want to strangle me when I talk?”

“Not in the least,” Fraser says, his voice warm. “In fact…well, that’s probably not appropriate.”

“What’s not appropriate? Me bringing up this weird thing I have about my voice and you being all nice and making with the reassurance and whatnotall?”

“Sometimes,” Fraser says, and it’s as though he’s both picking his words carefully _and _trying to get them all out in a rush, “sometimes, I have to confess, that I wonder what kinds of things you say when you’re…under pressure.”__

Okay, maybe I don’t talk so great, but there are some things I get. “You’ve heard me talk under pressure,” I say, stringing him on just a little. “But,” I add before he can start protesting too much and stuff, “you’re talking about another kind of pressure entirely, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed,” Fraser says, looking at me carefully. “Forgive me if I’m misreading the cues you seem to have been giving me, but I think perhaps it’s the kind of 'pressure' that you might enjoy sharing with me?”

“Benton-buddy,” I say, reaching up to slide my finger along my nose, “you picked that cue up just fine.”

And I’m kinda looking forward to hearing what he says when he’s under that kind of “pressure.” Encyclopedia Sexica, or grunts, or anything in between…it’ll be greatness.


End file.
